


Saving Melody

by mrsfizzle



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Cute Eleventh Doctor, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feel-good, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Melody Pond's Childhood, POV Eleventh Doctor, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:21:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25034623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsfizzle/pseuds/mrsfizzle
Summary: The Doctor rescues Melody Pond from the streets of New York shortly after her first regeneration. He plans to take the little girl to be raised by her parents, but discovers that it’s going to be more complicated than he thought.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	1. Regeneration

**Author's Note:**

> For Melody (River), this story takes place shortly after 6x2, Day of the Moon, and many years before 6x8, Let's Kill Hitler.
> 
> For the Doctor, it takes place a few years after 6x7, A Good Man Goes to War, and a few days before 6x8, Let's Kill Hitler.
> 
> Gotta love Doctor Who timelines.

She was lying crumpled on the sidewalk when he found her.

Until he arrived, no one gave a second look to the little girl. People passed by, and a few even glanced down at her, but no one stopped. It never ceased to amaze the Doctor how he could search all of time and space for someone, and when he found them, no one else seemed to recognize their significance.

He crouched down next to the little girl, scanning her over with the sonic screwdriver to confirm. Yes, it was her.

"Melody?" He placed a hand on her shoulder, shaking gently, then a little more firmly. "Melody?"

She looked nothing like she had when they'd seen her in the astronaut suit in America. She was younger, for one thing, and her hair was shorter and frizzier, and her skin was darker. She was also completely still, and her skin was cold.

He checked his sonic screwdriver readings again. She was definitely alive. He leaned down right next to her ear. "Melody."

"Mmm." Her face tightened into a wince, and one eye opened a crack.

"I know it hurts. But you'll feel better in a moment." He remembered that first regeneration. He'd had friends watching, so he'd held in the pain, barely reacting to the most excruciating agony he had ever felt up to that point in his life. And hers would have been even worse, in part because of her age and in part because of her origins. Her genetic formulation hadn't been stable, and he was surprised she'd been able to regenerate at all, but he was thankful she had. Locking onto the signals of her regeneration energy had been the easiest way to locate her. "Can you sit up for me?"

She rolled over onto her side and braced a tiny hand against the ground, pushing herself into a sitting position. Her eyes fluttered open and focused on his face. "You're the Doctor."

He swallowed. "You're not going to try to kill me, are you?"

"No. It's not time yet."

If not for all the strange things the Doctor had seen in his hundreds of years of travel, hearing those words from the mouth of a toddler would have been very odd. He decided to let it go. "Your parents will be very happy to see you."

If those words meant anything to her, she didn't show it. Her eyes closed halfway again, and she swayed. He caught her before she could fall back onto the concrete, but her head rolled back, and she winced.

"Alright, hang on, Melody." He scooped her up in his arms so her knees draped over his left arm and the back of her shoulders was supported by his right. "We're going to get you to a safe place."

He walked through the crowded streets with the child in his arms. He was aware that he stood out even more than usual, but that was just as well, because he cared even less than usual.

It would be better if she stayed conscious. If she fell asleep, it might be days before she woke up again. Not that that was necessarily a terrible thing—from Amy's perspective, he'd arrive at the same time either way—but he was anxious to get her home. The last time he'd seen Amy, she had been crying over the loss of her child, and she had flinched away when the Doctor tried to hug her. The pain of that moment had lingered for a long time afterward, especially when River had followed it up with the scolding of a lifetime.

He was making it up to them now. And while he deserved to have to wait as long as it took, he'd been searching for years. He didn't want to wait a few more days if he could avoid it.

"Stay with me, Melody," he whispered as they walked. "How old were you when you died?"

"In Earth years?"

Of course, she'd have to convert her age like he was always having to convert his. She'd been raised on a space station, at least in part. "Yes."

"Eight and a half." She turned her head so her face rested on his shoulder.

"How did you die?"

"I don't know. I ran away from the training compound, and I got really cold. I think I was sick."

It didn't really matter how she had died, as long as it had been from relatively mundane causes that wouldn't cause any complications with the regeneration. If the death had been extremely painful, it might cause trauma for someone as young as she was, though. "You're very brave, Melody."

Her eyes closed, and she sighed, pressing her cheek into the fabric of his jacket.

He smiled a little. It all still felt so foreign to him—the thought that Amy and Rory's daughter, and his future wife, and River Song, and this helpless little girl, were all one and the same. And yet somehow, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

They finally reached the blue police box, and he snapped his fingers, trusting the TARDIS to know what to do.

"Here we are," he said softly as he stepped inside. "Do you think you can sit up on your own?"

She nodded, and he set her down on a step in the corner of the control room before he proceeded to the console. He watched her for a few seconds before he turned away, though, in part to make sure she could sit up without falling or passing out, and in part to see the look on her face. Hearing a companion's first remarks about the TARDIS was always exciting, even though he was pretty sure he had heard and seen every possible reaction.

He waited with bated breath for her to say it— _It's bigger on the inside._

"It's exactly the way they described it," she whispered.

Those were words he'd never heard, but when he examined her face, the awe in her wide brown eyes was as magnificent as it was for any companion he had ever had.

He smiled, and they took off.


	2. Timelines

The Doctor snuck glances in the mirror, trying to get a read on the little girl sitting behind him in the corner and leaning against the wall behind her. It was difficult to believe that he was looking at a trained assassin. He couldn't imagine what her training must have been like. Raising someone to be a psychopath required a kind of abuse and cruelty he couldn't begin to imagine, but her face didn't look haunted, not now. More than anything, she looked tired.

"I can see you watching me in the mirror," she said softly.

The Doctor could imagine River Song saying those exact words. The words didn't have quite the same effect coming from an exhausted toddler. "I'm sorry."

He set the TARDIS to coast and went over to sit beside her.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"It's like I've been running. Also, my arms and legs feel funny. Kind of tingly."

"It's the regeneration energy. You're still cooking. Time Lord regeneration rewrites all of the cells in your body, replacing them, cheating death and making you into a new, well, you. But you're different, Melody. You're not just a Time Lord—you're a genetic anomaly of sorts, part human and part Time Lord, and your regeneration was unstable."

"It hurt."

"Things that end your life often do that." He put a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she gasped and flinched. He jerked his hand back. She hadn't reacted when he had picked her up to take her back to the TARDIS, but she had been mostly asleep at the time. He doubted she had had any kind or gentle physical contact for her entire life.

Amy and Rory were going to have quite the task before them, raising this one.

"Can I ask you something?"

She shrugged.

"Earlier, when I asked if you were going to kill me, you said it wasn't time yet."

"Yes."

"How do you know that? Did they give you a time?"

"I've been trained in the timeline."

"Timeline?" He would love a peek at their documentation. Maybe he'd have a go hacking in, after he took Melody back to her family.

"Mine. Yours. Ours."

"Anything highlights I should know?"

She scowled at him. "They only taught me what's safe for me to know. I'm not supposed to give you spoilers."

He looked down, smiling to himself and holding in a chuckle. "No, I suppose not. I don't suppose you could tell me about your training at all?"

"The Silence didn't say I couldn't." She pulled her knees into her chest and turned toward him a little.

That was surprising. "Really? If I know too much, aren't they afraid I'll be able to defend myself?"

"You won't."

He raised his eyebrows.

"I know a thousand ways to kill you. My aim with most weapons is among the top percent of a percent for all trained assassins, for both stationary and moving targets. I can get out of any trap and outsmart any opponent. I can also withstand enough pain to make you go insane."

He doubted the Silence had complete data on the pain he'd been through, if they were throwing out statements like that. But that was the least of the Doctor's concerns. Hearing anyone state with confidence the amount of pain they could withstand was alarming, but it had gone from unusual to downright unsettling to hear these words coming from the mouth of a child.

"I can also _cause_ you enough pain to make you go insane."

"Can you, now?" A small amount of fear joined his unease.

She nodded. Her tone was still conversational, as if she were telling him what kinds of foods she liked.

"Were you afraid?"

She looked up at him, brow furrowed. "When?"

"Ah . . . during your training."

"At first. I didn't like hurting the animals. Then they taught me how to stop feeling compassion, and I was afraid of their punishment. Then they taught me how to put up with the pain, and now I'm not afraid of anything."

"The regeneration must have been pretty bad, then, if it hurt you."

She blinked a few times. "None of my training helped."

If his hearts hadn't been broken before, they were now. He was going to have to tell Amy that he had found her daughter after the girl had been tortured, trained to kill, and ultimately, left to die of exposure. And he hadn't even managed to arrive before her death. "I'm so sorry, Melody." His voice cracked.

"Why?"

He lowered his head. She really didn't know that there had been anything wrong with her childhood. They'd done a complete job on her—she really was a psychopath. "I was too late. Again. I kept your mother waiting for twelve years, and I kept you waiting for eight and a half."

She leaned her head against the wall, eyes fluttering closed. "My father waited for two thousand."

His breath caught in his throat. "You know about that?"

"I know the timeline, remember?" she mumbled.

He reached out and very gently put a hand on her shoulder. She jumped a little, but didn't pull away. "Melody, you have to stay awake."

"Why?"

"I'm going to take you back to your parents."

She jumped up suddenly, facing him, eyes wide. "You can't do that!"

He dropped his hand from her shoulder. "Why not?"

"I . . . I don't look like them."

He smiled. "They won't care about that."

She shook her head. "You really can't, though. It's not part of the timeline."

"The timeline I'm not allowed to know about?"

She pressed her lips together.

The Doctor sighed and scooted just a tiny bit closer to her. He was thankful when she didn't try to pull away. "Are you afraid to see them?"

"I'm not afraid of anything. But it doesn't matter whether I am. They can't raise me. Their futures are in flux, but mine is fixed. And so is yours."

He swallowed hard. Something about the look in her eyes told him that she knew what she was talking about. This wasn't just a trick or a test. He would risk even worse consequences than he usually did if he tried to violate this timeline.

Amy would be devastated. He would have to tell her that he couldn't find her daughter. He'd been in agonizing pain for the entire time he'd been away, desperate for her forgiveness and his own redemption, and now that relief was so close, it was being taken away. It was enough to make him reckless.

But as he looked at the panicked little girl before him, and remembered the way River had scolded him that night at Demons Run, he knew he couldn't keep going the way he had been. Something had to give. Eventually he had to learn from his mistakes. Amy would survive.

He wasn't sure what to do with Melody, though. He couldn't take her back to the training complex, not if the universe depended on it. She needed a loving home. She needed Amy and Rory.

Then it hit him. A way that her parents could raise her without even knowing they were doing it. A way for their family to be reunited without breaking any rules of time. Playing with the timelines like this could modify her memory—she might not remember him ever helping her. She might think she was the one who had done it. Of course, she might forget him for an entirely different reason. She was in the body of a toddler, which meant her mind might not retain much as she aged.

But if it was a matter of timelines, he might forget this encounter. If he didn't, at the very least, he would need to leave it out of the diary, and never mention it to her again.

He breathed in to ask if the timeline had any rules about how and where she could be raised, aside from having to be away from her parents, but she had finally fallen asleep.


	3. Adoption

The conversation with the adoption agency in Leadworth was easier than the Doctor had expected or dared to hope. A couple of the workers there owed him a favor. Several, actually. He would have cashed them all in for Melody, if he had needed to, but he found he didn't even need to remind the workers that they were in his debt. They were happy to help.

When the Doctor returned to the TARDIS, the console room was still empty, so he went down the hall to find the bedroom he'd left her in. Hopefully she hadn't wandered off.

She was still asleep in the little bed. She looked so peaceful in sleep. Nothing like the way she described herself: the girl who could torture a person to insanity and kill in a thousand ways. Nothing like someone who had died the day before.

If it was an ordinary sleep, she'd wake easily. If it was a post-regeneration sleep, she might sleep for a few days, which meant he'd have to put the TARDIS in stasis for awhile, and there was the possibility that he could make a mistake. The adoption workers were expecting him back within the hour.

An hour was ages. He went over to the nearest kitchen and whipped up some pancakes before making his way back into her room. Even if she didn't want to eat, the smell of food might help her wake up.

He placed the plate down on the nightstand and crouched down beside the bed. "Melody," he whispered. "Hey."

She whimpered softly and rolled over.

He let his breath out. She was awake. "How are you feeling?"

She pulled the pillow over her head.

He supposed that was a good sign, in a way. There was no way she had ever behaved that way in the training complex, which meant she felt safer here with him. "I brought you some breakfast. Are you hungry?"

"No."

He sighed. "You've got to get up, Melody. Your family is waiting for you."

She whirled around and sat up straight. "I told you. I can't go back to my parents. The timeline—"

"No, no, not the Ponds. We're in 1992. They're your age now."

Her brow furrowed. "But I don't look like I'm eight and a half Earth years old."

"Sorry, you're right. They're three."

"I don't look three! Five, at least!"

It wasn't worth arguing with a toddler who would someday be River Song. "It doesn't matter. You may be able to control the rate you age, anyway." Some Time Lords could—more often the female ones.

She slowly pushed aside the blankets, leaning back against the headboard. "You said I had a family waiting."

"Yes. An adoptive family."

"What does that mean?"

He sat down on the foot of the bed. Of course, for all the knowledge they had given her, the Silence would never have taught her what adoption was. "Well, see, some people want kids, but they can't have them biologically. Or, I suppose, some prefer adoption, or they want more kids after they've finished with pregnancy . . . In any case, they take in a child who doesn't have a family, and they love that child as their own."

"There are people who want to do that for me?"

"Yes. A young couple who has been waiting for a child for awhile." He didn't bother to mention the conversation he'd had to ensure that couple was matched up with Melody, rather than another child who had been on the wait list for longer.

"Do they know where I came from?" she asked.

"Well, see, that's the beauty of it. They don't care where you came from. Sometimes, adoptive parents never find out. But they'll love you anyway."

A little crease appeared in the center of her forehead. "Do they know I'm an assassin?"

"No. Have the Silence asked you to kill anyone besides me?"

She shifted her weight a little. "No."

"Then it shouldn't be a problem."

She cringed. "I don't want to go."

"It will be okay, Melody." He reached out to her by instinct.

To his surprise, she grabbed his hand in both of hers. "I want to stay with you!"

The Doctor turned over one of her tiny hands and stroked the back of it with his thumb. "I'm sure that's not in the timeline, Melody."

Her nose wrinkled. "I'm not supposed to go back to Amy and Rory, but they didn't say I couldn't stay in the TARDIS."

"You're planning to kill me."

"So? That's going to happen either way!"

He squeezed her hand. "Melody, the life I lead . . . it's dangerous. It's no life for a child."

"I'm not a child."

As strange as it was to hear those words from the mouth of a three-year-old, and even though she was only eight years old, he knew she was right. She had never been allowed to be a child. But it wasn't the point. "Wouldn't you rather have a Mum and Dad?"

He looked up at her as she looked away from him, and suddenly he could see it in her eyes: fear. He was surprised to see it there. Even when he had tried to touch her and she had flinched away, there had been no fear in her eyes, only anger and defensiveness. The child assassin who could face danger and torture and confinement without blinking was reduced to terror at the mention of a loving family.

He supposed it made some sense, even if he couldn't imagine it. It was similar enough to the way he was afraid of a normal life—the one adventure he'd never be brave enough to have. The people who fed and housed Melody up to this point in her life had only sought to torment and manipulate her. A real family was a true unknown, and she was terrified of it.

"I'm not scared of danger. I'm not scared of anything," she said.

"Then prove it. Go do something you've never done before. Be a part of a family."

She pulled her hand away from him. "Will you come back?"

He stood up and looked down at her. Then he used both index fingers to draw X's on his chest. "Cross my hearts," he said.

She pushed back the covers and stood. "Okay, Doctor." She reached over to pick up a pancake with one hand—table manners must not have been a topic of instruction with the Silence, though the Doctor didn't mind in the slightest—and she reached for him with her other hand.

He took her tiny hand in his larger one, swinging it gently as they walked. "We'll see each other again."

"I know." She sniffed.

They reached the door of the TARDIS, and he let go of her hand and looked down at her, raising his eyebrows. "You'll be good, right, Melody?"

"I'm always good."

"And you'll try to keep out of trouble?"

She wrinkled her nose and looked up at him. "Never."

He chuckled and leaned down to kiss the top of her head. "I'd expect nothing less."

She smiled, and he opened the door to bring her to her new life.

It wouldn't be an easy life, he knew. Easier, perhaps, than the life she had known so far, but still filled with fear of stagnancy and false security, the unrelenting loneliness that came with knowing too much and having to keep secrets from the world, and a constant nagging feeling that her memories had been tampered with, as timelines fought to resolve themselves in her young mind.

But regardless of the challenges, the Doctor knew she would turn out fine. Better than fine, in fact. She would be amazing.

He already had a half a journal's worth of memories that guaranteed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is complete as it is, and I am marking it complete, but I haven't necessarily ruled out adding to it some day, or possibly doing a sequel. I've really enjoyed writing interactions between Melody and the Doctor. Tell me if you'd like to see more, or if you have any requests.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please do let me know your thoughts.


End file.
